A Semidefinite Programming (SDP) relaxation is an effective computational
method to solve a Sensor Network Localization problem, which attempts to
determine the locations of a group of sensors given the distances between some
of them [11]. In this paper, we analyze and determine new sufficient conditions
and formulations that guarantee that the SDP relaxation is exact, i.e., gives
the correct solution. These conditions can be useful for designing sensor
networks and managing connectivities in practice.
Our main contribution is twofold: We present the first non-asymptotic bound
on the connectivity or radio range requirement of the sensors in order to
ensure the network is uniquely localizable. Determining this range is a key
component in the design of sensor networks, and we provide a result that leads
to a correct localization of each sensor, for any number of sensors. Second, we
introduce a new class of graphs that can always be correctly localized by an
SDP relaxation. Specifically, we show that adding a simple objective function
to the SDP relaxation model will ensure that the solution is correct when
applied to a triangulation graph. Since triangulation graphs are very sparse,
this is informationally efficient, requiring an almost minimal amount of
distance information. We also analyze a number objective functions for the SDP
relaxation to solve the localization problem for a general graph.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the Fields Institute Communications
Series on Discrete Geometry and Optimizatio